As King Lanius had the summer before, he greeted King Grus when Grus’ army returned from the west. This time, the army didn’t return in gaudy triumph. It had fought hard, and was badly battered. But the Thervings had gone back to their own kingdom. The previous summer, Grus’ soldiers had seemed astonished and delighted to have driven off the enemy. This year, Lanius thought, it was more as though they had the Thervings’ measure. Maybe that counted for more than a parade through the streets of the city of Avornis.
Lanius wanted to ask Grus what he thought of that, but Grus forestalled him, saying, “Where are Sosia and little Crex?”
“Back at the palace,” Lanius answered.
Grus looked unhappy, but then nodded. “Yes, I suppose they would be. Don’t want to put a new mother and a little baby through too much. How are they?”
“As well as anyone could hope,” Lanius said. Grus smiled, which made him look like anything but a stern soldier. Lanius went on, “I like this business of being a father better than I thought I would. I think Crex looks like me.”
“I don’t suppose that’s anything against the rules,” Grus said. “Better he should look like you than me, anyhow. I’ll never be what anybody calls handsome, though Sosia’s lucky enough to favor her mother’s side of the family.”
He was right about that. Lanius had already seen how Anser looked more like Grus than either Sosia or Ortalis did. Thinking of Anser and Ortalis, Lanius said, “Your sons are both out hunting again today.”
“Are they?” Grus said. “That’s good, I think. I hope. Come on. Let’s go to the palace.”
When they got there, Grus kissed Queen Estrilda. Then he kissed Queen Sosia. And then, at last, he all but slobbered over his grandson. Crex stared up at him with the bemused look he wore a lot of the time. That look had bothered Lanius till he thought about it. It didn’t anymore. He’d decided the world had to be a very confusing place for a baby. Everything, everyone, was new. Crex had to figure out what he liked, who his parents were—everything about the world around him, the world in which he suddenly found himself. He didn’t even have any words to help him make sense of things. No wonder he looked confused.
To Lanius, Grus had always seemed a hardheaded, hardhearted man. Not here. Not now. The word that came to Lanius’ mind was sappy. Grus looked up from Crex at last, a broad, foolish smile on his face. “He’s wonderful,” he said. “And you’re right—I think he does look like you.”
Estrilda asked him, “How does it feel, being a grandfather?”
“First thing I said was, ‘I’m too young,’ ” Grus answered. “But, now that I see what I’ve got here, I take it back. I like the whole business just fine. How about you, dear?”
“Me? Oh, I hate it. I can’t stand it at all,” his wife said. They both laughed.
“Congratulations on driving the Thervings back again,” King Lanius said.
“Oh. The Thervings.” Holding Crex, Grus might never have heard of Thervingia. He had to pause and think about Dagipert and the neighboring kingdom. The process was not only visible, it was funny to watch. When it ended, he looked more like the Grus who Lanius usually saw. “Thanks,” he said. “Yes, we’ve bought a respite till the next campaigning season, anyhow. And Dagipert’s an old man. One of these days, he’ll finally drop dead.”
“Prince Berto is a different sort,” Lanius said. “I met him when he came here once. I was still a boy then. All he cared about were cathedrals.”
“I hope he’s still like that,” Grus said. “Cathedrals are a very good thing for a King of Thervingia to care about. If he spends his time caring about cathedrals, maybe he won’t have the chance to care about invading Avornis.”
“That would be good,” Lanius said. “We could use a few years of peace.”
“So we could.” When Grus looked down at Crex in his arms, his face softened into a smile once more. “And he could do with growing up in a city that doesn’t stand siege every so often. Couldn’t you, little one?”
Crex responded to that by screwing up his face and grunting. Estrilda laughed. “I know what he’s done!” she said with a laugh.
Grus laughed, too. He sniffed. “Oh, yes—so do I. But one nice thing about being grandparents—and about being king and queen—is that we don’t have to clean up the mess ourselves.” He handed the baby to a serving woman. She went off to give Crex fresh linen.
“That is nice,” Estrilda said. “That’s very nice indeed.”
Lanius took servants for granted. How could it be otherwise? He’d had them at his beck and call ever since he’d learned to talk—and before that, too, as the woman changing Crex attested. Now he eyed Estrilda in some surprise. Had she herself—and maybe Grus, too—changed Sosia and Ortalis? By the way she spoke, perhaps she had. She hadn’t been royal all her life. She hadn’t, but her grandson would be.
Grus’ father, for whom the baby was named, had been a man off a farm in the provinces who’d done modestly well for himself as a guardsman. His father had been a peasant of no distinction whatever. And yet Grus ruled Avornis, Sosia was wed to the scion of the ancient dynasty, and little Crex shared that dynasty’s blood. Not for the first time, Lanius thought about how different the world was likely to look to a peasant’s grandson from the way it looked to him.
Having thought about it, he eyed Grus with a good deal more respect. He himself took the kingship for granted. Why not, when he was the dozenth of his line to hold it? But to Grus, gaining the crown had to feel like climbing a mountain covered with nails and thorns and nettles. And yet he hadn’t murdered his way to the throne. He hadn’t slain Lanius, and he hadn’t even slain Lanius’ mother, who’d done her best to kill him.
“Thank you,” Lanius said suddenly, out of the blue.
Grus looked back at him as though knowing exactly what he was thinking. And maybe the older man did, for he nodded, set a hand on Lanius’ shoulder, and said, “You’re welcome.” Lanius nodded back. He still wasn’t sure he would ever like his overbearing father-in-law, but the beginning of understanding brought with it the beginning of respect.
The peasant bowed low before King Grus. He looked nervous. In fact, he looked scared to death, as any peasant coming before the King of Avornis was liable to look. “It’s all right, Dacelo,” Grus reassured him. “By King Olor’s beard, I promise nothing will happen to you, regardless of whether I decide to do anything to your baron. But I want to hear from your own lips what Fuscus is up to.”
“All right,” Dacelo said, his tone suggesting it was anything but. “He’s buying up our plots of land on the cheap, turning us from freeholders into his tenants. Some men let him, and sell out. Some hold their land as long as they can. And some, like me, figure it’s no good either way there and try to make our living somewhere else.”
“That’s why you came to the city of Avornis?” Grus asked.
“Sure is, sir,” Dacelo answered. A secretary taking notes of the conversation coughed. Dacelo turned red. “Uh, Your Majesty,” he amended.
“It’s all right.” Here, Grus was more interested in finding out what was going on than in standing on ceremony. “You know Baron Fuscus was breaking the law I put out after Corvus and Corax rebelled against me?”
Dacelo nodded. “Yes, sir—Your Majesty.” He caught himself this time.
“Did anyone in his barony point this out to him?” Grus asked.
“One fellow did,” Dacelo replied, and then, after a pregnant pause, “He’s dead now.”
“Is that so?” the king said, and the peasant nodded again. Grus scowled. “I don’t like seeing my laws flouted. Do you suppose Baron Fuscus breaks them because he thinks I don’t mean them, or just because he thinks they’re wrong?”